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which was first printed (at Naples?) in 1488. Their impact has
been felt in modern translations.
Several Judeo-Romance versions of biblical books are
extant, including a 14th-century *Judeo-Provençal fragment
of the Book of Esther by Crescas du Caylar, and manuscript
translations of Song of Songs (the oldest dating from the 13th
century) and of the entire Bible written in *Judeo-Italian. Although
the Old French versions have been lost, their existence
is attested by six 13th-century glossaries and two complete biblical
dictionaries in *Judeo-French. There may also have been
Jewish translations of portions of the Bible in Catalan, since
(as in the case of Old French and Judeo-Provençal) biblical
glosses (*La’azim) and glossaries in this dialect have inspired
scholarly research (see below).
LADINO (JUDEO-SPANISH). Judeo-Spanish translations of
the Bible dating from the 13th to 15th centuries were among
the earliest Castilian versions of the Bible, and three manuscripts
have been preserved in the Escorial Library, Madrid.
These early works were invariably written in Latin characters,
as was the famous Ferrara Bible (1553), published by Abraham
*Usque, of which there were separate editions for Jews
and Christians. After the Spanish expulsion, however, Ladino
versions of the Bible were mainly printed in Hebrew characters
for the use of Jewish refugees in the Sephardi Diaspora.
These translations, which were clearly distinguishable from
Spanish Christian editions, include Psalms (Constantinople,
1540), the Pentateuch (in the Polyglot Pentateuch, Constantinople,
1546), and Prophets (Salonika, 1572). Judeo-Spanish
Bible translations were later produced by Manasseh Ben
Israel (1627) and Abraham b. Isaac Assa, whose complete Bible
(Constantinople, 1739–45) was long the most popular work of
its kind among Sephardi communities of the Orient (see also
*Ladino Literature).
[Umberto (Moses David) Cassuto]
YIDDISH. The oldest Yiddish versions of the Bible stem from
the scholarly work of German rabbis who produced Yiddish
(or Judeo-German = Juedisch-Deutsch) glosses of biblical
texts from the 13th century. These were subsequently inserted
in rabbinical commentaries and specialized glossaries were
prepared, five dating to the 13th–14th centuries and four to the
14th–15th centuries. Copies of these have been preserved in
various German libraries. Prose translations of various biblical
books were written from the 14th century onward, and
these were specifically designed for the unlearned and for
women, in view of the widespread ignorance of Hebrew. Such
“Teitsch” versions include a 14th–15th century translation of
Proverbs, Job, and Psalms (the oldest extant); one of Psalms
(before 1490); and others of Psalms, Proverbs, and the Pentateuch.
These are literal and awkward, and appear to derive
from a 13th-century source.
Rhymed Yiddish translations of the Bible, which also
appeared in medieval times, owe their origin to the influence
of the Bibles and chronicles in rhyme produced by German
writers from the ninth century onward. There are also rhymed
Yiddish paraphrases of the Bible, which flourished in the
14th century, predating the rhymed translations. These paraphrases,
unlike the translations, go beyond the original text
and show the influence of German epic minstrelsy. The bestknown
work of this type is the so-called *Shemuel Bukh, a
rhymed paraphrase of I and II Samuel, the prototype of which
appeared no later than about 1400, although the first printed
edition is of a much later date (Augsburg, 1543). The Shemuel
Bukh served as the model for a host of other biblical paraphrases
in rhyme, including: three 14th-century paraphrases
of Esther; one of Judges (14th–15th centuries); paraphrases of
the five Megillot, which were apparently the work of Abraham
b. Elijah of Vilna (15th–16th centuries); paraphrases of Judges
and Isaiah by Moses b. Mordecai of Mantua (before 1511); and
poetic reworkings of the account of the death of Moses and
the Akedah. The last two display great originality, adorning
the biblical stories with legendary motifs drawn from the midrashic
aggadah, and endowing the biblical personalities and
events described with medieval characteristics. By the 15th
century there were also prose paraphrases of certain biblical
books, most of which have, however, been lost. The existence
of such literary works is indicated by the late 15th-century
Ma’asiyyot (“tales”), stories in prose about the Akedah, Jonah,
and King Solomon.
From the 16th century onward no new type of Bible translation
made its appearance. The only noticeable development
was the steady displacement of other genres by the prose
paraphrases. Three notable Yiddish glossaries of the Bible, all
rooted in medieval scholasticism, were the so-called Sefer R.
Anschel (Cracow, 1584), Moses Saertels’ Be’er Moshe (Prague,
1605–05?), and Lekaḥ Tov (Prague, 1604). The same scholastic
tradition characterizes the oldest printed Yiddish editions
of the Pentateuch with haftarot and the five Megillot, that of
the convert Michael Adam (Constance, 1544); another by the
convert Paulus Aemilius (Augsburg, 1544); a revision of the
Constance edition by Leo Bresch (Cremona, 1560); and a
further translation based on the preceding Cremona edition,
together with a summary of Rashi’s commentary in Yiddish
(Basle, 1583). The publishers rarely did more than bring the
Yiddish translations up to date, and this was also true of the
Yiddish version of Psalms by Elijah *Levita (Venice, 1545),
which closely followed earlier editions by Moses b. Mordecai
of Brescia (before 1511) and Joseph Yakar (siddur, Ichenhausen,
1544). Two further Yiddish translations of the 16th century
were Shalom b. Abraham’s Judith and Susanna (Cracow, 1571)
and an edition of Isaiah with extracts from Kimḥi’s commentary
(Cracow, 1586). Toward the end of the 17th century, two
complete Yiddish Bibles appeared almost simultaneously: one
by Jekuthiel b. Isaac Blitz (Amsterdam, 1676–78) and another
by Josef Witzenhausen (Amsterdam, 1679), which was more
significant than the first.
Rhymed Yiddish translations were rare after the 16th cen-
610 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3